Muni Diaries

Has anyone else noticed that the new energy-efficient Muni buses have really wimpy-sounding horns?

Anyone who’s ridden Muni knows that its drivers LOVE blaring their horns to warn other drivers they’re a-comin’ and give them one last shot at dodging certain death, and the old buses have a fairly loud, satisfying horn that makes it clear. (You’d think it’s clear enough that an enormous vehicle is bearing down on you and about to accordion your car, but no.)

But the new ones make a “Meep, meep!” sound roughly equivalent to the horn in a Honda Civic. Not very threatening, is it?

— Beth W.

This is my favorite book - too grim for the bus?

This is a true story: a single guy friend was sitting on the bus when he spotted two attractive women sitting across from him, both carrying the same book. He decided to strike up a conversation with them by asking them why they had the same book. They told him that they were in a book club and had just bought this book together at a book store for their next meeting. They told him all about the books they’ve read and what this particular book was about, and, well, digits may have been exchanged.

Well, what book was it, I asked him.

“It was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Juno Diaz,” he said.

Did it matter what book it was?

“Of course! I mean, if it were Eat, Pray, Love, I don’t think I could even talk to them!”

I actually know another guy friend who tries to carry an impressive or interesting book on BART so that, “just in case,” he can strike up a conversation with the right girl. He leaves the programming book in his backpack for the BART ride and busts out his more literary reads.

I too love books so I can sympathize, though I would hate to think that some random person is looking at my book choice in barely concealed disgust!

What do you read on the bus? Have you started a conversation with someone based on their choice of books? And what’s the book you’d be too embarrassed to carry around? (come on, who loves the Chicken Soup for the ______ Soul series?)

UK blogger Jake Stride snapped a picture of an Obama poster at the Bank London Underground station (via the fantastic London Underground Tube Diary). As the blog reports, there was no branding attached to the poster, which was a part of a series of photos that included the Cern Collider, a woman doing yoga, and various other seemingly unrelated things.

It turns out that this is a series of advertisements – a teaser campaign – by the Times. Clever, no?

With the election heating up here, have you seen any election-related ads on Muni or its stations? I don’t think I have seen official ones (and probably unlikely too). However, I certainly have been very tempted to ask fellow riders who they are voting for, and in the unlikely chance that they are going the way of Alaska, I might just give them a piece of my mind.

I remember that in 2004, after voting on election day, I was on the 1 California and saw a lot of other people wearing the I Voted stickers. I was too shy to give them a high five even though I wanted to, but this election I just might!